Russia's egg crisis is spiraling out of control - eviltoast
  • speff@disc.0x-ia.moe
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    10 months ago

    “Before, I used to buy eggs for 70 rubles ($0.78) a dozen. Now they cost between 130 and 140 rubles ($1.45 to $1.56)—twice as much,” Ilia Zaroubine, a 21-year-old student, said.

    Near the end

    • Bo7a@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      And here in Quebec we are paying 6CAD(4.50)usd for a dozen… While not being embroiled in a war of our own design.

      Correction: The 6CAD was for 18. That is what I get for checking grocery websites before coffee - It is more like 4CAD per dozen.

      • Stamets@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Americans and everyone else constantly complaining about food prices. Meanwhile us in Canada being fucked by the same three companies and a government who (regardless of party) hasn’t shown they give a flying fuck on lowering anything.

        Even when Americans had the big egg shortage last year it was coming up to the average prices of eggs round me.

        Utter bullshit. Half the time I’m too broke to afford food.

        • Lichtblitz@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Is there a difference between regulations regarding eggs between the US and Canada? Eggs in the US are dirt cheap because almost nothing surrounding poultry is regulated. I’m happy to pay the premium in Germany for minimum living conditions, antibiotics restrictions, no culled male chicks, etc. but I also realize that not everyone here is as fortunate.

          • i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de
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            10 months ago

            It varies by state. If you’re selling into certain states, your chickens must have at least a certain standard of living. Unfortunately, eggs probably aren’t often shipped across state lines, in which case it doesn’t mean anything for farmers in other states and they can still abuse their chickens. https://cagefreelaws.com/

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          In the current economic system, widespread lowering of prices is considered to be harmful. So it’s not really possible without major economic reforms. Best solution is to increase wages/income to offset higher prices.

            • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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              10 months ago

              Not really the issue. Deflation is a transfer of wealth from debtors to creditors which is not necessarily healthy. It also encourages hoarding money which can cause job losses.

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            The only way a legislated raising of wages works is by initiating price controls, otherwise corps can and will raise prices to protect profits

      • YoorWeb@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        But average Canadian makes more money than average Russian, therefore Canadian farmer will ask for more money to afford his shopping or farm expenses than Russian farmer would.

    • Victor@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      So fucking cheap! It’s about 3+ SEK per egg in Sweden where I live.

      • speff@disc.0x-ia.moe
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        10 months ago

        True, but the average income / buying power has to be factored in too, right? Caveman googling gives the average Russian’s income to be $14k USD / year whereas Swedes are at $47k USD / year. Assuming more caveman math, that’d be like paying $5.23/dozen in Rubles compared to $3.60/dozen in SEK.

        Of course you can’t just do these sort of comparisons exactly, because money’s always more complicated than that, but I think it gives a better context.

      • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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        10 months ago

        Do like I did and move out to the countryside, buy a vastly cheaper house with some land, work in IT so you can work remotely most days and get some hens. Spend far less on their feed than I did on eggs and I find home range eggs to be a very appreciated going away gift these days.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I do work in IT (software engineer) but I don’t eat eggs so much that I need to buy a damn countryside farm because my egg consumption is ruining me here in the city lmao. I’ll eat cheaper things/eggs only sometimes. It’s not the most expensive food here, in the least. 😄

          • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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            10 months ago

            The eggs is of course just a side benefit, the big thing is a house that is literally 1/10th the cost per square meter of living space.

            • Victor@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Weeell we all have our priorities. I like to be close to friends and family and things to do like team sports, and live close to the sea. Close to a grocery store, close to daycare and schools etc.

              I don’t think I could live in the country. I wish I could. It’s very nice to be out in nature, where it gets dark, and quiet. How I love the quietness of the countryside.

              I just hate driving far to everywhere I need to go. I want to get places quickly. Too little time to be alive to be driving for hours every week. I can’t.

        • bramblepatchmystery@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          I remember seeing a youtube video that broke down the economics of eggs, and you need like 35 chickens before your economy of scale begins to compare to the price you pay at the grocery store.

          I don’t know if that figure was counting assumed labor on the part of the homesteader though.

          • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            10 months ago

            I think it depends very heavily on how you raise the chickens. And what you value - nutritional value or raw cost.

            For example, if you compost all your house and garden scraps (veg scraps, clippings, bread, grains, pet food leftovers, pretty much any household biodegradable scrap) and let the chickens access the pile to dig out goodies they want to eat and scratch bugs out of? Healthy chickens, minimal feed cost through whatever months they have access to bugs and scraps, and their nitrogen rich waste enhances the compost to help it break down faster and make veg growing more efficient. Feed is more of a supplement then, and the chickens give you more than just super healthy nutrient rich eggs (plus you can eat them when they can’t lay anymore which you don’t get out of the raw price of eggs). If you can work it out so they always have access to a pile warm enough to not freeze or let the bugs die off, with enough fresh material (maybe from neighbors in exchange for some eggs here and there if you don’t produce enough on your own), that really can make up a substantial part of the diet, reducing the break even point by a lot.

            Sure, it’s probably not going to be outright cheaper food, unless you have solar for coop heat and can source cheap feed (spent grain from a brewery, for example). But it is more efficient and more nutritious food, and a lot more humane than most factory farming. Plus being even partially self sustaining really does help reduce the hold corps have on us, which is always a win.

          • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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            10 months ago

            Probably since the feed price doesn’t start scaling down until you order pretty extreme amounts. Well I guess if you also consider the capital expenditure of building the pen and buying the hens and then look at a 5 year ROI then you do need a few and the larger you build the cheaper it gets per hen, generally speaking.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That’s crazy.

      Those are still just a little bit cheaper than a dozen eggs at Walmart.

      • YoorWeb@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        It doesn’t work that way. Eggs are not imported from the West and Western prices don’t apply on domestic produce. Russian earnings are nowhere near the Western ones on average.

      • appelkooskonfyt@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        You can’t just compare the dollar value of items across countries when median incomes and cost of living vary so much. The same dollar has different buying powers in different countries.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          But I can compare the increase by percentage, and everything went up in cost in America, so Russia can’t expect anyone to give a shit about their problems when they are murdering and land grabbing. Fuck Russia, and fuck anyone sympathizing with them.

  • voidMainVoid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    In a rare apology from the Russian president, Putin said during his end-of-year press conference that insufficient imports and demand are to blame for the hiked prices.

    “I’m sorry about this problem. This is a setback in the government’s work,” Putin said on December 14. “I promise that the situation will be corrected in the near future.”

    Holy shit. Russians are serious about their eggs!

    Look, it isn’t hard to substitute eggs in recipes. You can use applesauce, banana, chia seeds, flax seeds, or tofu. (To be fair, though, I don’t know what those cost in Russia as compared to eggs.)

    • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      He apologized about eggs?

      What the absolute ever loving fuck? Sending hundreds of thousands of his own people to a meat grinder he can stop right now, but eggs he can apologize for?

      Where’s the strongman?

        • voidMainVoid@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          In that case, it’s sad that he doesn’t think the Russian people would revolt over sending hundreds of thousands of them to die in a pointless war.

      • chitak166@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        It’s something that affects average Russian people.

        Don’t you remember when Americans were bitching about the price of eggs a few years ago? Basic ingredients are like gas. People notice when they go up in price.

        • spongebue@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It was a single year ago that they went crazy. But this has been a weird time to keep track of time

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I don’t get it - he funds American conservative politicians who have no trouble saying people shouldn’t rely on the government to solve their problems. Why not just say the same thing here? Especially since he can throw anybody who complains out the nearest window.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        People dying in a war are to make Russia great and defend itself from the outside world. Or something like that and anyway who gives a fuck when it’s not you and just some other random Russian who’s probably a criminal anyway.

        But eggs fuck that affects me and shows how shit the country is. Now that’s a serious issue!

        • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I … On the one hand I’m pretty sure humans are considered animals, on the other hand, if vegans can’t eat anything or buy any product that was made using the exploitation of animals including humans that… Pretty much rules out everything purchased under capitalism and most other systems too.

          • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            If you cook with your own blood, no animal was exploited because you freely consented.

    • Skates@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      The day I have to eat poached applesauce is also the day I overthrow my government.

  • GreenPlasticSushiGrass@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    “Before, I used to buy eggs for 70 rubles ($0.78) a dozen. Now they cost between 130 and 140 rubles ($1.45 to $1.56)—twice as much,” Ilia Zaroubine, a 21-year-old student, said.

    I realize that it’s probably a greater percentage of total wages, but by US standards, that’s still dirt cheap.

    • Cannibal_MoshpitV3@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Most American citizens, despite some struggles we face, still make twice as much or more than the average Russian.

        • Quokka@quokk.au
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          10 months ago

          Righto mate.

          Not at all to do with different cost of living.

          • chitak166@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            It has to do with conflating needs with wants.

            They believe those who have more deserve more before those who have less.

    • bstix@feddit.dk
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      10 months ago

      It’s not metric, but there’s another logic to it.

      Those cartons are available for 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20 eggs.

      • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I feel old seeing to many variations on egg volumes. When I was a boy the tray had 36 and you could fill a half dozen carton or two hals dozens stuck together.

        • bstix@feddit.dk
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          10 months ago

          The standard wholesale tray is 30.

          They stack better than boxes, so it makes sense to transport them that way for restaurants and other kitchens.

          I haven’t seen the 30 trays in retail stores in several years. I guess most people don’t need 30 eggs at a time or it’s difficult to transport unwrapped

          • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I couldn’t remember I was recalling them and figured it was a 6x6 carton.

            Where I saw them was at dedicated grocers and they were open top cardboard bases you could select the eggs from as required.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Russia’s egg crisis spiraled out of control this week after an attempt was made on the life of the head of a poultry farm in the Voronezh region, with prices for the staple food item continuing to climb.

    Gennady Shiryaev, the 59-year-old head of the Tretyakov Poultry Farm, the largest in the western Voronezh region, was driving home when an unknown person fired two shots at his car.

    Russia has seen an unprecedented surge in egg prices this year against a backdrop of high inflation and sanctions imposed by the West in response to President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    A day before it happened, Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service initiated a case against Shiryaev’s poultry farm—and three other local producers—for sharply increasing egg prices in October.

    In a rare apology from the Russian president, Putin said during his end-of-year press conference that insufficient imports and demand are to blame for the hiked prices.

    Muscovites told news agency AFP in an article published on December 12 that they have experienced even steeper price increases than what has been reported by Rosstat.


    The original article contains 493 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • The Uncanny Observer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    They have to pay high prices in order to afford eggs for breakfast.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian parents would pay any price if they could have their dead kids back.

    It’s impossible for me to feel sympathy for whatever happens to Russians.

  • robocall@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m completely against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and their anti LGBT policies, among other policies. but I recall America having an egg price spike in 2022. Each countries price spike may have been caused by different reasons, but I believe Putin when he says this will be temporary and the government will work on fixing this.